By John Hempfling and Jeanne Kay

Steve Schwerner’s Report on Visiting Team

The first Alumni Board meeting of the year opened morning of Friday the 6th with a presentation by Antioch Emeritus Professor Steve Schwerner, who was representing the delegation if educators who came to Nonstop and reported on their visit to the Board Pro Tempore. [link to Record article on visit] Schwerner said he expected that everyone had already read the eight-page report, [Link to the Report] and preferred to answer questions from the floor rather than reiterate the points made on paper. He specified that he would be unable to answer “questions of speculative nature,” since he was not in a position to answer them, and stipulated that he could only speak for himself.

Schwerner, however, stated that the Visiting Team was “impressed on every level; we were impressed by the seriousness of the faculty, by the excitement of the students, the innovations, the ability to make something out of nothing.” Yet he emphasized that despite the unquestionable value of Nonstop, it was too early to assess how it would be reintegrated into the new college; “to lose everything that Nonstop has done seems foolish, to incorporate everything is impossible.”

- Transcript by John Hempfling

The Record interviewed ProTem Board Chair Lee Morgan and Consultant to the ProTem Board Matthew Derr on Monday, February 16th

Stream this audio interview below, or click on the link to download or listen in your preferred audio application:

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Download or Listen to full, unedited interview

The Record: Could you both define your role in the process leading to the definitive agreement? Lee what is your role?

Lee Morgan: Technically I’m the chair of the board ProTem, that’s my role, but I was nominated by the Alumni Association Board of Directors to represent alumni on the Task Force to negotiate the LOI.

What are you doing during the 90 day period, what does your schedule look like?

Lee: I’m trying to raise fifteen million dollars and we have to hammer out the definitive agreement and there are problems with the definitive agreements. I made some mistakes in the LOI one of which is mine, so I’ll fess up… which is the reversion clause in the LOI.

You said at the Seattle meeting that this was a deal breaker?

Lee: It is, for me it is, now Matthew might talk me out it but right now to me it’s a deal breaker.

Newsbriefs from Yellow Springs

By Jeanne Kay

Pro Tem Board delegation to visit Nonstop

On Friday February 13^th, a delegation of Board Pro Tempore trustees will be in Yellow Springs to meet the Nonstop Community. The team will consist of: Frances Horowitz, chair, Zelda Gamson, Ev Mendelson, Steve Schwerner, Prexy Nesbitt, Matthew Derr and a GLCA representative. The contingency will report on their visit to the whole board.

Risa Grimes on Fundraising

The fundraising target for the 90-day period between the Letter of Intent and the Definitive agreement is $15 million, of which the University will get $5 million. “The 5 million is predicated on the 10-we won’t get the five unless we get the ten;” CRF Executive Director Risa Grimes explained, “This donor [has made] a challenge grant.” CRF fundraisers are asking donors to pledge over a 5 year period; “It’s pretty normal that you ask for 5-year;” Grimes said, “It’s not unusual to give people that much time to pay that much money. The economy’s pretty bad so we want to give people the opportunity to participate-not make it so hard on them. ”

Grimes said that no fundraising numbers were available yet but that the CRF would provide public updates in the near future.

As to fundraising strategies, Grimes said that they were consistent with past processes: “We’re sharing the future-what it could be. We’re talking about getting their college back… we’ve been building a strategy for a couple years now-as we’ve gone through all of this, it’s just good memories… share stories, hope that it touches them somewhere where they want to help support… you do that over and over again.”

If anyone has taken a course with Scott Warren, they’ve heard his analogy of the situation at Antioch “It’s like the grandchildren walking up the stairs with a pillow to smother grandpa for the inheritance money”. Appropriate analogies have never been what I’d refer to as an Antiochian strength, but this is as accurate as it is vivid and amusing.
At the same time, let’s take a step back and ask ourselves, like I imagine the grandfather from that analogy might between muscle spasms and screams, how we let this happen. When people at home or work ask me why Antioch is closing, as much as I’d like to scream about the evil University, what I always end up answering is “Decades of mismanagement by radical liberals”. The University is certainly not innocent in its money-grubbing opportunism and disregard for history, tradition, or decorum, and the cowardice of these destroyers will not be forgotten. But they are simply vultures, looters attempting to squeeze another penny out of someone else’s hard work. They are not frightening aside from their prevalence. What’s much more terrifying to me is what allowed them this opportunity: The death of the Antioch dream.

By Kim-Jenna Jurriaans

Major donors intend to make Antioch College independent by July 2008

As of yesterday, the Antioch community has one more acronym to add to their daily vocabulary. After two weeks of negotiations with representatives of the Antioch University Board of Trustees, on Friday a group of deep-pocket donors and former trustees established the Antioch College Continuation Corporation, or ACCC, scheduled to take over operations of a fully independent Antioch College by July 2008.

“We have to raise a lot of money in a hurry to make this work, but we believe that we can, now that the goal is in sight,” says Eric Bates ’83, deputy managing editor of Rolling Stone Magazine, former trustee and co-chair of the new corporation. In a resolution adopted last week Thursday, the University Board of Trustees authorizes University Chancellor Toni Murdoch to explore the feasibility of turning over the 155-year-old college to the new corporation. This should happen “in a way that protects the interests of the university while also ensuring the viability of the college,” adds Antioch University Board Chair Art Zucker in a press release on Tuesday.

The corporation, whose members spring from the group of major donors that emerged as new power brokers over the past two weeks, is taking over the position as lead negotiator with Antioch University, after similar efforts by the Antioch College Alumni Association resulted in a widely criticized deal last month. Meanwhile, the ACCC is awaiting a letter of intent from the university chancellor that outlines a transfer of assets to the corporation. Such a letter should be drafted “as soon as possible, but not later than its regularly scheduled meeting set for February 21-23, 2008,” the release states.